View full sizeBRENT WOJAHN/The OregonianThree generations of Henry women â (from left) Kaila Feves; her grandma, Ethel Henry; and her mother, Jodi Henry-Petty â are allergic to gluten and other products. Henry-Petty and Feves started Eena Kadeena, a Hillsboro company that sells gluten-free mixes and baked goods.

HILLSBORO -- Their family used to be big on brunch, munching down bagels, pancakes and muffins with a cup of coffee.

Then within a year of each other, three generations began suffering allergies to gluten, an ingredient in wheat. Grandma, mom and daughter suffered rashes and stomachaches.

Because wheat is part of nearly all foods with starch, the women didn't have too many options as they scrounged for gluten-free sweets that tasted like the originals.

"It's daunting," Jodi Henry-Petty, 54, said. "It's hard to find, and a lot of it doesn't taste good at all."

So Henry-Petty and her 24-year-old daughter, Kaila Feves, started Eena Kadeena, a company that sells baking mixes free of gluten, corn, soy and dairy products. For the first time, the year-old business is debuting mixes and fresh pastries at the Beaverton Farmers Market, which opens Saturday.

The business is run by a mother and daughter, but it's got the spirit of a ma and pa, Henry-Petty said. Its name derived from a pa, after all.

Henry-Petty's late father, Lester Henry, used to recite to his kids and grandkids a nonsense rhyme, which went something like: "Eena Kadeena, kadask kaday / Ruffley ruffley, combinay / Explode, something goes / A half a peach, a half a plum / A half a stick of chewing gum."

Really, says Henry-Petty, a holistic health educator who lives in Cedar Mill, the story goes, "the family likes to eat."

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Feves, a Bethany resident who graduated from the Oregon Culinary Institute, took on the challenge of converting traditional recipes to gluten-free ones.

Early experiments were a mixed bag. Concoctions sometimes exploded in the oven or stayed raw even after being baked for five days.

"It's like science," said Feves, who joked that, for a while, she had the best-fed garbage disposal around.

Feves refined her ingredients, substituting gluten with brown rice flour and potato starch. She doesn't use a timer anymore when she bakes -- she just knows.

They work from an industrial kitchen on the border of Hillsboro at Northwest Aloclek Drive, where racks are filled with mini-cupcakes so small that four could fit in a palm.

The pair taste-tested their creations with a panel of critical judges: pastry chef friends, people not allergic to gluten, an uncle who can be hard to please.

View full sizeBRENT WOJAHN/The OregonianCupcakes are among the fresh, gluten-free pastries Eena Kadeena plans to sell at the Beaverton Farmers Market.

The mom and daughter perfected their chai pancakes and snickerdoodle cupcakes and began selling baking mixes online. People from 26 states and from as far as Australia ordered Eena Kadeena products.

As demand grew, they applied to the Beaverton Farmers Market, with the idea that they would sell both dry mixes and fresh pastries, including muffins, scones and tea loaf cakes.

Ginger Rapport, manager of the farmers market, said she had been looking for a local gluten-free bakery for a while.

"It is important to provide consistency to customers who rely on specialty products such as these and to give them delicious variety," Rapport said.

Feves said since she opened her business, she has met many others who are allergic to gluten and grateful for an alternative.

"I like watching people take their first bite of a birthday cake," Feves said. "I've seen moms burst into tears when their kids have it for the first time."

Every Eena Kadeena box has been touched by the family's three female generations, Feves said. Grandma Ethel Henry, 83, also known affectionately as "Button Bubbie," helps cut samples and seals every box with a plastic sticker, like a goodbye kiss.

On her breaks, Henry-Petty said she likes to eat her favorite homemade snack, peanut butter cookies dipped in ganache, which she has stored in the freezer "at all times."